Jilly Cooper - Polo

‘Wash your mouth out with soap, Perdita,’ said Terry Hanlon, ‘but isn’t she playing well!’

Catching the other side off guard, Mike powered the ball to Ricky who, keeping moving to lure Angel away, broke off to the right to receive the ball, then before Angel could blink, backed it to a hovering Seb, who, swinging Corporal round, scored yet again.

‘Corporal’s an RSM now,’ whooped Seb.

Six-all to England on the bell.

The whole crowd were on their feet yelling their heads off as the teams went into the last chukka, and the Americans steadied and rallied.

‘England, England, England,’ chanted the galvanized British contingent.

Now they were into a frantic mêlée in front of the American goal. Angel somehow managed to clear and Ricky sent the fleet-footed Wayne after the ball. As he could hear Red thundering down on him, the only answer was to back it. Turning round in his saddle, a miracle of cool, Ricky took a lightning look at the posts, then, picking the left-hand one as a target, keeping his body steady and Wayne moving, leant over to the left until his head was level with Wayne’s gallant, pounding heart and raked the ball over the antheap of players slap between the posts. As the flag went up, the crowd gave a collective sigh of horror and ecstasy. Overheard by everyone, Chessie uttered a shriek of joy and raised a clenched fist in a Black Power salute: ‘Oh Ricky, darling, what a wonderful, wonderful goal,’ she screamed ecstatically.

The cameramen went berserk. They had a picture at last.

The English were also ahead at last. But with three minutes to go they could feel their ponies wilting. Spotty was panting like an obscene telephone caller and his brown patch foamed, under his breastplate, like an overflowing washing machine. Red and Angel had taken the opportunity when the last goal was scored to change ponies. The English problem was to stop either of them getting the ball. Next minute Mike gave his side a breathing space by clouting the ball firmly into the stands.

‘Unsporting but necessary,’ said Seb as the players lined up. ‘You’re learning, Mike.’

In the closing seconds a perfect eighty-yard drive from Red took the ball down to the English end where it was centred by Bobby Ferraro. One after another, yelling with frustration, Angel, Bobby, Shark and a furiously galloping-up Red tried to hammer the ball between the posts. As Mike cleared for England through a thick curtain of dust, a great groan went up from the stands. For once again Shark had left the American posts unattended. Taking the ball up the boards with two mighty driving passes, kicking up a halo of dust as he went, Ricky could feel Wayne struggling to stay ahead and Red on a new pony gaining on him. Just in time he jumped the boards and did a forehand cutshot to Seb, who, hearing Angel’s pony behind him and seeing five seconds left on the clock, took a frantic swipe at goal.

Realizing it was going wide, Perdita catapulted forward for the offside forehand.

‘Bloody hell,’ she screamed as the ball hit a divot and bounced awkwardly to the left. Rupert had permanently taunted her that she had no nearside cut shots. She’d show him.

Dimly she was aware of the great roar of the crowd chorusing: ‘Spotty, Spotty, Spotty.’

Triumphant in his moment of glory, revelling in the circus blood which was now pumping on overtime through his veins, Spotty noticed the ball had shifted. Jamming on his brakes, he pirouetted like Nureyev on his conker-brown legs sixty degrees to the left, thrusting Perdita within reach of the ball, but at the same time wrapping her in a cloud of dust.

She couldn’t see what she was doing, but, trusting Spotty and her instincts, she leant perilously out to the left and with a flick of her wrist like a tennis backhand stroked the ball where she prayed the posts might be.

Then she dropped her reins and clapped her hands over her eyes, unable to watch as the dust cleared. Slowly opening her fingers, she saw the miracle of the flag going up, then frenziedly joyful waving. The bellow of the crowd was so deafening that no-one heard the final horn. It had been such a wonderful match that the sporting, marvellously good-natured crowd could forgive a British victory and poured on to the pitch to honour all the eight heroes.

Perdita’s throat was so dry that she couldn’t whoop for joy. Instead she hurled her stick high into the blue and people rushed forward to catch it.

Desperate to get the first quote, a Scorpion reporter had pinched one of Bart’s ponies and thundered up the field to thrust a tape recorder under Perdita’s nose. What with the frantic panting of Spotty and Perdita’s delirious croaking, the reply was pretty inaudible.

‘Well done, Perdeeta!’ It was Angel, reaching out to shake hands and hug her. Next minute Shark was beside her, looking like his namesake deprived of a nice fat human. Then suddenly his ugly face split into a great grin and he clamped a vast sweaty arm round her shoulders.

‘Well done, honey. I’ve gotta admit you outplayed us. I never thought I’d say that to a slip of a girl.’

‘Who gave you the slip?’ Bouncing through the crowds like a dog through a barley field, Seb hugged Perdita and pumped Shark’s hand.

‘Jolly big of Shark,’ he added in an undertone. ‘Evidently Bart offered him a quarter of a million bucks if they won.’

‘Christ!’ said Perdita in awe, as Spotty nearly disappeared beneath a wave of patting hands.

Refusing to shake hands with anyone, his face a death mask, Red galloped past her.

‘Well played,’ called out Perdita, amazed that she suddenly felt so sorry for him.

He turned unsmiling. ‘Fat lot of good it did me. You did great. Back off, you fuckers,’ he snarled at the advancing photographers. Then, seriously endangering their Nikons and their lives, he galloped straight through the lot of them.

It seemed ages before Perdita could wade through the surging ocean of wellwishers back to the pony lines. On the way she lost her hat and her whip and very nearly her shirt. Looking up, she noticed Rupert fighting his way towards her. Seeing the expression of blazing triumph on his face, she glanced wistfully round to see at whom it was directed, but there were only swooning, excited cheering crowds. Slowly it dawned that he was looking just at her. An instant later he’d dragged her off Spotty into his arms.

‘I’m all hot and sweaty,’ she stammered.

‘Well done, my darling! Oh Christ, I’m proud of you!’

As she looked up, bewildered, he put a hand on her soaked head and pulled it against his chest. He could feel the frantic pounding of her heart.

‘Come on, Rupe,’ shouted the Sun as the press closed in.

‘You must recognize Perdita as your daughter now.’

Rupert grinned round at them: ‘Course I do. Only a Campbell-Black could have played that well.’ He looked down at Perdita. ‘It’s all right, lovie. There’s no need to cry. You’re mine now. I’ll take care of you.’ Then, to make her laugh: ‘We’d better not hang around or The Scorpion ’ll accuse you of parent-molesting.’

As the teams lined up, even the normally impassive Ricky was hard put to hide his elation.

‘They said we hadn’t a fox’s chance in a hunt kennel,’ he stammered to the grey-mushroom field of microphones, ‘but we did it. The boys and Perdita played so well, I just had to follow them round. That’s not to say the Americans didn’t play brilliantly. But in the end we played better.’

‘D’you think all the flak you got from everyone in the last month sharpened up your game?’ asked The Sunday Times .

Ricky smiled briefly. ‘No, I was always good.’

‘Oh, isn’t he macho?’ sighed the girl from the Mail on Sunday. ‘Talk about a cliff face turning into an avalanche on the field. What are you doing this evening?’